Homeworld
by CuHnadian
Summary: Nobody reacts the same way in any given scenario. Some people in my shoes may have gone to fight crime at C-Sec, start a mercenary group with their friends or join Shepard to become big god damn heroes. All I wanted to do was go back to my era. This place may have been my hometown of Vancouver, but 2182 was not my time. At least, not for now.
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

Homeworld

Chapter 1: Arrival

Fan-freaking-tastic.

I was out of toothpaste and had forgotten to pick some up. Well shit, guess I was going to have to deal with having my teeth feel like ash by morning. Looking at the mirror, seeing my tired blue eyes looking back at me, I shrugged. I didn't feel like doing it anyway, now I had a reason not to. I set my toothbrush back in its place and turned the hot water tap. Soaking my hands before washing my face. My eyes were shut until I had the towel in my hands. Lightly patting my face until it was no longer wet, as well as the front of my hair. I shook my head as I set the wet towel on its rack. I could never get my hair to stay brushed up at the front, it was irritating.

Granted, not as irritated as my mother probably was due to the racket downstairs. It was almost two AM and I decided to call it a night. My three friends didn't have a ride and had to stay in for the night. Paul already called the good couch in the lounge and Phil called the bad couch in the living room/gaming room. Meanwhile Bjorn had the shitty mattress on the floor, not that he cared since he didn't say anything as he usually did. I could tell though that they probably wouldn't catch some shuteye until four. At least that was par for the course.

Living on the other side of an island without a driver's license, no bus route and friends going to high-school doesn't give someone like me much flexibility. The only thing I had that was out in the open was time. I had lots of it, yet at the same time I felt like I had barely any at all. Within the year my mother and I were going to have to move, I was headed to take a film/writer's program in collage and I'd have to get work at some point. It was exciting and scary at the same time, I hated feeling those at the same time, mostly because of the later. I walked through the tiny corridor toward my room. Taking a quick glance at my book shelf, seeing the Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov first in the row. I still had to get around to finishing the first one. Between books I meant to read, TV shows I wanted to catch up on, movies to see and games to finish, I had way too much entertainment to go through.

Meanwhile, what could laughingly be called my laptop sat on my desk, begging for its attention. The fact that I was an aspiring writer didn't help with my clogged up box of entertainment that I'd never get around to finishing. By the time I got to my closet and hanged up my shirt and jeans, I was pretty much asleep. Wrapping myself up in my blanket and reaching out to turn the light switch off. The light from the moon was the only illumination left. As much as I may joke around about not giving a shit about a lot of things, I always did like this time of night. It was nice, peaceful, quiet and controlled. Not like what the world really was.

Or what my life was about to be.

* * *

Wake up.

That's what I'd always hear in my head when my senses would come back in line, albeit not fully. I'd usually hear another side of my head telling me to not get up, I'm homeschooled, it doesn't matter when I move my ass out of bed. Yet something was telling me this time was different. This wasn't a unique scenario though, being the reason why I kept my eyes shut and waited to fall back to sleep, as unlikely as that was.

I hated this routine in my morning, when I'd be awake but not fully and had to start questioning reality. I'd hear things that weren't there and knew they weren't there, yet I'd mentally responded to them anyway. What bugged me now wasn't voices though, it was the surface my head was lying on. It was weird, all leathery and… stuff. Oh great, now I sounded like Bjorn. That's what I really wanted to wake up to. Hopefully this didn't lead to a stupid nickname like his brothers would give him.

Okay, this leather thing was really starting to get to me now. So much so I opened my eyes, only to immediately close them afterward. The light was blinding, I kept trying to see and couldn't without feeling like my vision was going to burst. Did the sun really have to be this fucking bright again? I should've closed the damn blinds. Another stupid decision I had to make and deal with. Either close all my black curtains and feel like an emo kid or open all of them and wake up two hours earlier than I usually did. My eye's had finally been able to open enough for me to see though, granted only through my left for now. All this did was make all of them freeze for an untold number of seconds, when suddenly, everything in my body kicked in. I wasn't tired or sore and my brain ditched its state of limbo for confusion. I was laying on a white table in an all-white room with nothing but the said colour, table and me.

What the shit was this? Where the fuck was I? What in god's doucheness was going on? Confident that I wasn't going to blackout in the state I was in, I hopped out of bed and landed on my two feet. Surprised by just how weird the flooring felt under my bare feet, made from some kind of space-age metal. That was when I realized that I only had grey sweat pants on and nothing else. My head pointlessly darted around the room, searching for anything and coming up with nothing. It hadn't changed in the past minute I had my eyes open. It still looked like a rich man's blank slate. Not only was the place almost completely mute in sights, it was in sounds too. Aside from the tap of my feet touching the ground, there was nothing.

"Guys?" I called out.

I didn't know why. If any of my friends were here I think I would've heard something from them by now. The only thing I could do right now was just walk around. Despite the place being blank it wasn't small, quite the contrary in fact. I didn't know why this place as so big, it's not like it contained anything. I walked up to the wall that was barely distinguishable from the floor, had it not been for the blatant ninety degree angles, I would've walked straight into it. I reached my hand out to touch it and found two things. One, that it was the same material as the floor and two, I had opened a door.

The quiet whoosh of the door opening still startled me. I was excited though, finally able to see something else other than a white panel. My mood dropped though as soon as the door had run its course, revealing another wall made from white panels. I slowly stepped through the new found open air and looked around the corner, finally seeing some interior, a front desk with a chair. Both of them looked as out of this world as the space age flooring did. I opened my mouth to say something but stopped when I found that aside from the desk, this room was completely vacant as well. I was looking around everywhere when my head snapped back to the middle of the wall, specifically, the door that it held. Unlike the last one, this one actually looked like a door. A weird one with no handles and a green display in the middle but it still looked like a fucking door.

Almost automatically, I was standing in front of the door. I stared it for a few seconds, suddenly feeling nervous without any real reason to. Regardless, I took a deep breath and reached to touch the green display, only to see my hand go right through it. At first I thought I did something wrong, but the door opened despite my confusion. What came next was much more baffling. Slowly walking through the door with my mouth open, my brain had felt like it was erased by what my eyes were seeing. Car horns, the groups of people talking to themselves, the drips of rain, I was familiar with all of them. What I wasn't ready for were the whines of what I could only describe as flying cars. The skyscrapers that made New York and Seattle look like Vancouver. The televising billboards that covered sixty stories of a building.

I stood there, dumbfounded. It was only then I realized that I was not looking at a street filled with cars and pedestrians. I was on a said street, with people looking at me… wearing just sweat pants. It wasn't like I was in a spotlight that everybody was staring at but every person that walked past me just gave me a look of "Huh?" I never liked attention so I turned behind me to go back inside the room I was just in, suddenly missing its quiet if bland interior. However, the door wouldn't budge. Not opening at my command like before. I couldn't figure out why until I saw the display that was green before was now red. I might've preferred it if the door just said "Fuck you", at least that would've been more direct.

_Okay. Just ignore them, it's that easy. _I sighed and walked to my right before looking. I tried to keep my eyes focused on something to make it easier to neglect the people giving me funny looks (not that I blame them). That was when I noticed a big neon sign over contemporary tables and chairs, some of them being outside. I guessed it was a café by the looks of it, although I did find it strange the place was called "Retros". Usually when I thought retro I thought of 50's diners or when everything was black and white. Soon I was walking past the place, without any intention of going into it. I stopped however when I saw a bunch of devices stacked in what looked like futuristic newspaper stands. Picking one up from the top, it seemed like some sort of tablet, like an iPad or something. _Since when do cafés hand out free iPads?_

The device's screen showed something though. A headline in massive text at the top, followed by pictures and an article written in a much smaller font size. It was a news story like any other. The headline however, was something else to be said.

**THE ASARI HAVE A NEW COUNCILLOR**

I read that one word dozens of times and it never changed. I wasn't reading it as something else. And reading the article only made things worse.

_**Councillor Tevos is confident that her much touted project will lead to mass effect fields to be used in ways the public has never seen.**_

_Mass effect… Mass effect? Thee, Mass effect… Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?_

**Playlist Track 1: Lazerhawk - Arrival**

* * *

**Authors Note: Here goes my second attempt at a Self Insert. Hopefully I wont end up cancelling this series like I did with Mass Affect. More importantly, I hope you guys enjoyed this opening chapter. I completely altered the main premise about four times. Speaking of which, I want to give a shout-out to Bronzedamazon. Had it not been for her feedback, you'd be reading a very different story than the one you see here. **

**There won't be a certain day of the week when I post a chapter like the re-write so I apologise ahead of time for my laziness to get things done. With all that said, let's get this show on the road.**

**Peace.**


	2. Chapter 2: Shadow on the Sun

Homeworld

Chapter 2: Shadow on the Sun

I didn't spend time on finding a reasonable explanation on how this could happen, because there was no such thing. Logic had always been a good friend of mine but today that friend did a lot more than throw me out of the bus. Mass Effect. That title never seemed so baffling to me. Of course it didn't, it was just a videogame. A piece of entertainment had to do a lot more than that to wow me with a title but now, I couldn't help but say it over and over again in my head. It made sense of everything though, it explained the flying cars, the skyscrapers and the fact that every single god damn thing on display was holographic. It didn't explain one thing however, and it was an important one. Where fuck was I?

I could literally be anywhere. There was no way to tell. I shook my head and sighed. There had to be some clue or a public terminal I could use. There was one thing I did manage to pick up on, if this really was mass effect, where were the aliens? So far, the only people I encountered were human. And the pouring rain suggested that this wasn't a controlled station in space. That just left one option, Earth. Well, at least there was one piece of familiarity I could cling on to. Too bad it had to be an entire planet!

The thoughts about the crappy weather reminded me too that I needed to get a jacket or something. By now I had gotten completely used to the looks people were giving me. I'd have been confused as well by the sight of a blonde eighteen year old walking around with his arms wrapped trying to keep warm… and failing. It wasn't freezing but the rain mixed with my bare feet on concrete and soaked hair made for a very unpleasant journey. Finally though, after walking around for an untold number of minutes or hours, my eyes laid upon a clothing store. Just like with the door when I first got here, my feet automatically took me towards the boutique.

The place was right in front of me. I didn't have a plan on how I was going to get some clothes without a cash. Credits, whatever the fuck they were. Maybe they'd just feel sorry for me and hand me a coat, or just so they didn't have to look at me half naked. Whatever, all I had to do was walk in there and hope for the best… unless it was closed. Right as I approached the door, the evil words showed up right in my face. Of course it was fucking closed. Why wouldn't it be? I mean, it's not like I've had a really, really fucking bad day or anything. I would've kept ranting in my head like this when I noticed that the hologram below the closed sign was green. Raising an eyebrow, I looked back and forth between the two signs.

No way, it couldn't be that easy. Just to check if it was, I reached my hand out toward what I now knew was a green hologram and smiled when the door opened. It really was that easy. Looking around to check the street and hope that nobody noticed, I stepped inside the shop. Happy to feel the sensation of a heated room, even if it did remind me how soaked I was. Then the door shut and the place became pitched black, so much so that I couldn't see anything… fuck. It was alright, I had done this enough times at home to know the drill. You just walk very slowly with your arms stretched to stop you from running into anyth- _Oh shit! _

My arms that were in front of me were now reaching out so that I didn't block the floor with my face. Along the way of nearly getting my teeth knocked out, I had grabbed something in the meantime. Standing up my hands ran around it, trying to figure out what it was. It felt like a coat of some sort, pretty much what I was looking for. First I needed to find some kind of light switch in this place. Well, it was the future, maybe…

"Uh… lights, on?" I said aloud.

The store still sat in darkness, meaning I achieved nothing and felt like a fucking idiot. Thankfully, my eyes were starting to adjust so that I could at least make out paths in the store. I followed one with the coat in hand long enough to come across what seemed to be the front counter. And thankfully, an old school light switch on the wall. Right down to the old plastic click, must've been an old building. I had to blink a few times to adjust to the new found lighting in the store and saw a good line of pants, socks, shoes, shirts, towels and coats. That was when I brought up the coat I had and came to find out the colour… it was pink.

_Fuck me sideways in church. _It was always something. Sighing, I threw the coat away and instantly grabbed a nearby towel. After drying everything from my hair to feet I threw the towel into a nearby trash can and was set on looking around the store for something. There was a rack of those skin tight suits that I saw plenty of people of both sexes wearing while on my way here. I had to admit that I didn't mind the occasional cute girl walking by in them but there was no way I'd myself try on one of those. I much preferred to stick with old school shirts and pants.

I didn't' know how long I was in there for but after a while I managed to find a decent long sleeve shirt, jeans and a pair of socks and sneakers. I was just about to leave when I saw the coat rack and remembering the rain outside. On top was a sign that said sale. _What's that? Everything's free? Okay! _I took a long blank coat from the rack and looked at the nearby mirror. It fit pretty well and kind of reminded me of Jensen's coat in Deus Ex: HR. _Awesome. _Then the door opened revealing a young guy, not much older than me entering the place and looking at me with less than happy look. He was definitely one of the employees. _That's… not awesome._

"Hey!" the man shouted.

Before he even said anything I was out of there. I had already spotted a back door when I was exploring the store and used it for my escape at that moment. I had never stolen anything before and this was all reinforcing why I didn't… you now, aside from being a decent human being. I was now in a back alley and could see an empty street in front of me. There was a walkway overhead protecting me from the rain. I ultimately hated it though. I jumped when a gunshot was fired, its sound echoed across the space I was in. If my ears could scream "Ow!" they would've.

"Stop right there!" the same man commanded me.

I turned around with my hands in the air. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! There's no need for the fucking gun!"

"Shut up!" he said, gesturing toward his gun again. "Hand over the stolen clothes."

"Look, I can explain. I really didn't-"

"Hand them over! Now!"

But… I was everything I was wearing was from the store… "Uh… are you sure we can't strike a deal or something-"

"Shut the fuck up! And hand them over now!"

"What about the coat? Okay?" I said, taking off the coat and tossing it on top of the cleanest trash bin I had seen. "Is that good?"

"Everything!" he yelled, his voice growing even more impatient. "The shoes, the socks, pants, shirt, everything!"

"Fuck you!"

He stood there for a second, dumbfounded at what I said.

"I'm not a fucking stripper, dickhead! Are you seriously willing to go to fucking jail because I stole some shit ass clothes?"

That was when I noticed somebody behind the guy holding me a gun point. I couldn't make out who it was but he was crouching and being quiet as he approached my captor. If he was going to help, I thought I better help and drag this out. I made sure my eyes were focused on the stupid shop employee.

"Besides, you left the door open. I probably wasn't the only one that robbed your store."

"No! You broke in! There's no way I left that door open overnight!" he argued.

"Look at me! Do I look like a fucking lock picker?"

Once again he went silent and looked at me like I had a shoe on my head.

"Oh… right," there was no such thing in this realm.

Thankfully the man with the gun didn't stare at me for much longer. That was interrupted by the man behind him grabbing his arm and forcing the gun to drop out of his hand. I ran forward as soon as the gun dropped to the ground but the person behind the store owner was way ahead of me. He grabbed the gun and had it armed right at his chest, taking a few steps back sot the owner couldn't try and snatch it away.

"Leave. Go," said the mystery man.

What didn't seem very mysterious was his voice. I knew who it belonged to. It wasn't one that you could mistake. Right as the store employee ran away, I finally got a proper look at my defender and was relieved by the sight.

"Bjorn!"

My long-time friend stood there at my height and weekly smiled. He never was one for expressions. But I could tell he was not as down as before.

"It's good to finally see a friendly face," I breathed out.

I took a deep breath with my hands on my knees, thinking about how for the first time in my life, I was held at gun point. That and the fact that the weapon was an M3-Predator. I knew by now where I was universe wise but seeing all these sights without pixels in the way was still getting to me.

"Yeah," was all he said in return.

He said about as much in his words as he did in body language. It was something I had grown used to a long time ago. Gulping and standing straight, I walked toward my jacket and put slid my arms through the sleeves. Thankful for the warmth it brought. I looked at the gun Bjorn was holding.

"You might want to keep that, just in case."

He nodded. "Yeah, probably."

He clearly had done the same thing as I did in the store. Except with a much bigger coat that he put the pistol inside. He always had a thing with huge coats for some reason. I always thought that he would get pulled to the side for looking like a drug dealer whenever we crossed the border into the states.

"How did you get in?" pointing at the store.

He shrugged. "The door was open. He must've left it like that."

I shook my head and chuckled. "Of course," fucking idiot was wrong. I paused as I thought about trying to think through my question. But like anything, I just ran with it. "You know about where we are?"

He looked at me and nodded, not saying anything.

He knew the answer though. "Any guesses where we are? Location wise on Earth?"

"Yeah. We're in Vancouver."

Vancouver? No. No, no, no. This city was my hometown, I think I'd know it when I see it and this wasn't it.

"Get the fuck out."

"I'm not kidding," my friend replied. "I saw science world on the way here."

"Where?"

He started to walk through the opposite side of the alley that I was headed in. _Goddamn it. _I sighed and started to follow him. It wasn't long until we were on the street where the clothing store was, but Bjorn turned left. Where I would've been headed if I walked past the department. It was nice not having the hard concrete touching my bare feet. That and the rain had died down to a relaxing drizzle instead of pouring like it was earlier. Maybe this really was Vancouver, just based on the random weather. Then again, I shouldn't say maybe. Bjorn was quiet and didn't say much but he wasn't one to lie.

"So, did you wake up in a white room earlier?"

"Yeah."

"With just grey pants?"

He looked at me with a confused look. "Yeah."

I had built up a translator for Bjorn in my head over the years. What really said was "Why does that matter?"

"So you woke up in the same place as me. But I didn't see any trace of you."

"Sure. But I didn't see you there either," he pointed out.

He must've woken up in a different room then. Mine was hidden so his must've been as well. Walking through the streets was nice though. My heart was still racing from my fear but at least I was able to stroll the streets and not get stared at the entire time. It seemed like these people just saw us as completely normal. I stopped though when we were no longer surrounded by tower blocks. The street had opened up and right there in front of me was a landmark I had been to many times on field trips. Science World. It was much bigger than I remember but it was there. The round dome that looked like a metal spider web was surrounded by the waterfront, large parking lots and updated sky-train. We walked toward across the street the light and beep sound went off. I couldn't help but notice the widened roads and brand new cars on the ground. They looked straight out of a sci-fi, which shouldn't have been a surprise at this point.

I still couldn't believe this though. Vancouver, my city, in the future? Was this really the future? Or a different one? Parallel universes, dimension traveling, oh god, why the fuck am I having to think about this shit! Maybe science world had a reasonable explanation. But I wasn't on a field trip and therefore had to actually pay to go in, bullshit. I'm sure there was one thing in there that could help me though, studying other races. This was reminded when I saw two of them with my very own eyes. A turian, asari and a human walking through Creekside Park.

The turian and asari looked exactly as you would think the two of them would look in reality. Not that helped with the shock of seeing them though. The bird look of the turian and the blue skin of the asari obviously stood out in the crowd of humans. But if this was Vancouver, I'm sure it didn't lose its diversion of people or in this case, species. This was my city in a time that was anything but mine.

Vancouver would never look the same to me again.

**Playlist Song 2: Audioslave – Shadow on the Sun**


	3. Chapter 3: The Gale

Homeworld

Chapter 3: The Gale

My usual protocol when talking to a friend while walking in Vancouver varies. There's much to talk about, or rather, bitch about. The weather, bad drivers, ugly buildings, the weather, etc. That didn't happen this time for obvious reasons. While I wasn't getting any strange looks from people since I had some clothes on, they were probably wondering why I looked dumbfounded by the sights I saw. Bjorn and I had spent an hour or two now just walking around, taking note of other Vancouver landmarks. BC Place? Check. Robson square? Check. Hotel Europe? Check. It was all here.

In my experience, you don't view landmarks the same way a tourist does when you're born in the city in question. To me, all these places that some people come from all over the world to see, have just been there. Today though, I saw them in a completely different light. They were what remained of myself. They were what I could cling onto as familiar. If it weren't for them, I'd swear I was on a different planet. Then again, the aliens made me forget sometimes that this was indeed, my home. Bjorn and I had caught more looks at more Xeno's. Mostly asari it seemed but there were also turians and the occasional salarian. The last of which really caught me off guard.

Seeing them with my own eyes reminded me of how tall they really were. Turians were tall as well but you'd expect that with their size. Salarians don't seem like that at first glance, it's only when you see it up close. This was when Bjorn and I were crossing a street and happened to be standing next to one. Thankfully, the fast talking, big eyed alien didn't pay us any attention. I did speculate however that these aliens were either here on business, family or vacation. The only places we had seen them at were landmarks and business districts. Walking through the regular streets of Vancouver, it was packed with nothing but my own kind.

Humans everywhere were talking about their jobs, discussing what happened on this week's biotic football game, or buying food at the store. We weren't doing any of those things. Unfortunately, the last of those was rather important. I of course hadn't had breakfast and the lack of it was making me starve, and I could tell Bjorn was feeling the same. By now we were sitting on a bench, in the heart of downtown Vancouver. I always avoided this area because traffic was nothing other than torture, now I almost missed it. At least it would've been something else I was used to.

"I really need some damn food," I said aloud, my stomach growling as if it was trying to confirm my statement.

Bjorn didn't say anything, instead keeping his eyes focused on the coffee place across the street from us. I wasn't much of a drinker of the hot beverage but I there was almost anything I'd do for a small cup right about now. My eyes narrowed though when I saw people in the lineup. Not because of the said people, but more specifically, what they were doing just before they walked off with their java and cinnamon rolls. They would either flash their omni-tool, or they would pull a card out of their pocket, slide it through a machine and walk away.

Were those the so called credit chits I heard about? Granted it was only in one side mission but still. I bumped Bjorn's shoulder and pointed to at what I was seeing. I could tell from his look that he was thinking the same thing as me.

* * *

_This was ridiculous…_

My eyes had set another decent looking human being with a lot of green under his couch… credits, whatever. This was about the thirtieth person that had refused to share a single credit with me in order to get some food. Bjorn had been one step ahead of me. By that I mean he got one credit from a guy before the rich bastard said "Good luck with that". I sighed and walked up to the person in my sight.

"Hey, buddy," I said in as friendly a tone I could manage. "Have you got anything to spare? I haven't had any food in a long tim-"

"Get away from me, fuckface."

I came to a complete stop on my own, allowing him to "get away from me". _Fuckface? Did he really just… I give up. That's it, I can't take this anymore. _I quickly walked to the other side of the street where Bjorn was, trying and failing just as much as I. He just shook his head at me. He hadn't magically achieved anything since the last time I asked him how things were going. He walked beside me as we walked down the steps away from the business building and were back on the streets.

"This is fucking bullshit!" I hissed through gritted teeth.

Bjorn made his typical sound between a snicker and grunt even though I knew he agreed. I was a more positive than negative kind of guy, as was my friend here, but at moments like these when everything was falling apart, it was hard to think of rainbows and bunnies. Then again, I never had my life fall down like this. While I was trying to think of something else to bitch about, I stopped when I noticed I was we were standing next to what looked to be the equivalent of an electronic store. You know like Future Shop or RadioShack if you forgot those guys closed in Canada back in my day.

Stepping inside the shop I was glad to see that the employees were the kind that let the customer stand in their store for more than five seconds before being spoken to. I needed to take this place in as I really was unfamiliar with everything in it, at least when it wasn't behind a computer monitor. The instant I stepped in though, I could see three omni-tools on full display in their active modes. All in different colours, red, green and blu- Oh are you fucking kidding?

The irony combined with the advertisement playing on the blue omni-tool was enough for me to look away and try and find some other holographic wrist watch/everything else device. Thankfully, the tables in the middle showed what I was looking for. The sign above said "TRY ONE", at least it didn't have anything attached to that. It could've said something like "TRY ONE AND GIVE US MONEY FOR TRYING", "TRY ONE AND GET ONE PERCENT OFF", "TRY ONE OR THE BOMB IN THESE DEVICES WILL SELF DISTRUCT". I really could've gone on all day but decided to settle with the signs suggestion. I came to find though that much to my surprise, the omni-tool in its inactive state, was nothing more than a thin strip of plastic. Kind of like those ones you'd get when going to a convention or theme park.

I took the thin strip of whatever this was made out of and let it wrap around my rest. Strangely, when it was set against my skin, I could barely see it, like it had just become another layer of my skin. However, there was the power button that made it possible to see. My finger hovered over it until I tapped the holographic symbol, only to be startled when suddenly my forearm and hand were surrounded by the default orange hologram device. _Okay, this… is fucking badass. _Moving my arm around I could see that the display followed, it was weird but more fascinating than anything else. It cemented even more how this really was the future, not simply a concept of it.

Right as I was about to actually try and figure out how this piece of tech worked, it vanished. Befuddled, I shook my hand and hit the power button to which I all that was emitted was a slight tap from my skin. I looked a quite the fool… again. Made even worse when looking at the band around my wrist solved my mystery, the thing had a time limit. Apparently I was so blind I missed the ticking clock next to the power button. Sighing I shook my head and took the band off, setting it back on the table along with all the others.

Bjorn had about the same luck as I. Having the thing shut down before having a chance to learn how to use the thing. I guess it was meant just to show what it looked like to have one. All it did was hammer the point even closer to home, we didn't have any money. We had walked out of the store not much later. That was when I came up with an idea, something that I never thought I would do in my entire life. Then again, compared to how we got here, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.

* * *

It had been another hour of waiting. The two of us sitting on another bench, a couple blocks away from where we made our last attempt to get some credits. There were many candidates in that regard that I let walk by because I had added a couple more requirements to my list. I needed to my have douchebag alarm to go off in my head so loud it could deafen people in China. I had no idea what time it was but the sky had darkened a bit, getting closer to the day's evening. The alley next to us had been completely vacant since Bjorn and I had been watching the entrance of this business tower. It would be needed if this was going to work.

As soon as the glass door had opened to make way for its next person to walk through, I knew we had our target. Some out there have a special talent to even go as far as walking like an asshole. One of these people standing at around 5'6 tops was walking down the stairs in this manner. Dressed up in suit far too expensive for working at "Richie's Removals" it might not have stood out, if it wasn't for the fact he was a walking megaphone.

"Nah, man," he said from across the street, talking to a "friend" over his golden omni-tool. "Man, those blue skinned bitches need to start up a dick sucking business if they want to actually get anywhere. I guarantee man that those sluts get pushed aside by us tomorrow, man."

I didn't need to ask Bjorn if this was our guy. I tried my best to ignore everything this man was saying, afraid that if I paid any more attention to it my brain would suffer a quick but painful death. I was able to ignore it long enough for the man to finish walking down the stairs and walk past us, not giving us a single glance. With him almost next to the alley, Bjorn and I stood from the bench and started to walk behind him at good number of paces away. There weren't many other people on the street and the ones that were didn't seem to care about the Captain Douche or my friend and I.

Even after going through all this trouble to find a person I thought I wouldn't feel bad to steal from, I was still trembling, nervous that something was going to go horribly wrong. But it was too late to back up now. I had already taken a piece of black cloth that was in the pocket of my jacket – I didn't know what it was for but it came handy now – and covered my face. Bjorn had done the same except with this being white for some reason. I took a deep breath, knowing what I was going to do and saying that it was for my survival.

"Excuse me," I said, in as calm a matter as I could, stepping closer to the man walking in front of us.

"Yeah, yeah, just shut up for a second," he replied, not giving me a glance like he had at the bench.

Last I checked, people that steal don't wait. I quickly walked in front of him. "I don't think so, asshole."

Without any shame, he laughed in my face. "Did you just call me an asshole, asshole?"

With nobody paying attention to us, I shoved the rich bastard in front of me. Not being prepared, the guy fell down into the alleyway, landing flat on his ass before leaning back up.

"What the fuck was that shit for brains?" he yelled, his voice echoing off the walls.

I knew this was going to be a problem. Nobody may have been looking at us but they probably would be, given time. I didn't want to use plan B but we had to get this over with. I reached into the big pocket on the inside of my coat to pull out the pistol Bjorn had taken from the store clerk earlier today. I didn't point the gun at him, not only because I didn't want to but also because I didn't think I needed to. Just the sight of it made our hostage think it'd be better to stop talking.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay," the man repeated. "Okay, okay, okay. It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's-"

"Who are you, porky pig?"

"I, I…" he stopped at the mention of the name, looking up at us in confusion.

_I've really got to stop using old sayings. _"Just give us the omni-tool," I said, not trying to have my voice tremble like my body was.

"What?"

"Give us, you're omni-tool."

The asshole seemed to freeze as if somebody had hit the pause button on life. His breathing suddenly changed from panic to what sounded like relief. "You, you mean you guys aren't going to rape me?"

Now it was our turn to look bewildered. Even with the masks I'm sure it came across regardless. "Wha? We were just- Look, just give us the omni-tool."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, here," he said with a new found enthusiasm. Running his hand over his arm like a heroin addict before finding the piece of translucent piece of plastic and taking it off. He held it out for Bjorn to grab while I kept the gun. Bjorn took it and put it on his left arm before he suddenly started to look like a heroin addict as well. He stopped when he finally found the power button and tapped it… only for nothing to happen.

"It won't work," Bjorn said aloud.

"What do you mean it won't fucking work? It was working before."

"Uh…" uttered the asshole. "It's on and you can't turn it off when you're in the middle of a call."

"Wait…" I said before looking at the device. "In the middle of a call."

"Jason," a new voice said over the omni-tool, causing the device to light up bright orange. "Should I be calling the police?"

"No, no!" replied the asshole named Jason. "Otherwise they might actually rape."

"What the fuck is with you and rape?" I asked, raising my voice and eyebrows.

"I'm calling the police, Jason!" said the caller.

"No, man! Seriously, don't!" yelled Jason again.

"Don't fucking yell!" I hissed, raising the pistol slightly.

I waited for another sentence from the voice on the device when said voice never came. All that was emitted as an innocent beep when the call stopped. A silence fell over the three of us as all eyes were on Bjorn.

"I… turned off the call," he said, slowly.

_...Why didn't I think of that? _"Well, then let's go," I said, tucking the pistol back in my coat's inner pocket and started to walk away, Bjorn following close by, leaving the asshole behind.

"Uh…" said the said asshole. Make us turn around to look at him. "You do know my friend probably called the cops… he's kinda paranoid man."

Before that could even sink in, the sound of a siren came on to remind me that the really hadn't changed that much over the years. What I was more thinking at the time though was "Oh shit!"

"Let's go!" I said before running down the dark alley as Bjorn did the same.

I knew there were reasons as to why I didn't steal. One I was a good person, two, I didn't need to, three, I fucking sucked at it. I was an art of theft the same way my dog was an art of idiocy. All that train of thought did though was remind me of how much I already missed that idiocy.

* * *

Thankfully when it came to the sirens, luck had been in our favour… for once. The repeating blues and twos had been for a different crime committed a few blocks away. Logically it made sense, even in the future I don't think the police had a response time of fuck all. The asshole named Jason didn't chase after us either, which was good. The last thing we needed was running down the street with a flaming douche chanting "Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" while chasing us.

With the sun starting to set, my day had been a wild trip that needed to end with my head on a pillow, preferably along with a bed and not on a bench. Knowing the future they've probably got little robots to walk around and kick homeless people off their precious 16th century outdoor furnishing, or that was just me being bitter. Last I checked, I didn't remember any scenes in Mass Effect where that happened. However, that could also be said for all my hometown's landmarks, or clothing stores, or how omni-tools are equipped. There were a lot of questions out there now with very few answers, at least when it came to the stuff that mattered to me.

About an hour after Bjorn and I had gotten a decent distance away from where we robbed Jason, we had moved away from downtown's businesses in search of a hotel. Turned out that Jason wasn't a wanna be rich guy but a real one. After figuring out how to work the fucking thing, Bjorn had managed to find out that our little piece of tech held a good five thousand credits. Giving me the excuse to pick a decent place. At this point I didn't care where we went, just as long as it had a nice, comfy bed for me to collapse on. The receptionist didn't suspect us of using someone else's funds since Bjorn figured out how to change that and soon enough we were standing in a glass elevator, twenty stories high with eighty more to go. The rain had made its return and had been pouring the city ever since Bjorn and I we under the hotels space age ceiling.

"So… what are we going to do tomorrow?" asked Bjorn after a long silence.

Out of everything that had happened, that was one of the big questions. There enough of them for me to drown in. Where was Paul and Phil? Were they even here? Were they somewhere else? Was this an alternate universe? Were we in the future? Could we go back? The last of those was the one I wanted answered the most. There was no denying that everything that happened to me today was amazing. But it was not the kind I wanted to live with. I continued to stare out the window, somehow being able to see Stanley Park without any other mega-structures blocking my view. It reminded me of the little picture book that my mom had, all of them of me standing in front of one of the parks attractions every year. I was not going to let that be taken from me.

"We'll go back to where it started. Where we woke up."

**Playlist Song 3: Insomnium – The Gale**


	4. Chapter 4: Now I Know

Homeworld

Chapter 4: Now I Know

Wake up.

That was something I couldn't decide. On the one hand, I wanted to. Just in case I'd open my eyes and I would see my boring tan coloured wall with nothing more than my GTA: San Andreas poster. Jumping out of my bed from the thrill of being home, shortly before blacking out and scaring the shit out of my mother with the sound of my face hitting the wooden floor. However, if this really was happening, I wanted none of it. I'd be happy to continue laying there under my blanket made out of some kind of fabric that didn't exist in my era. But curiosity would always get the better of me and I couldn't just lay in bed forever. When my eyes opened, I saw what I expected, not what I hoped. The hotel room's blue walls were what I saw and they were all I needed to come to the conclusion that I was still here. Here in the Mass Effect universe with no easy way to leave in sight. As I got up from my bed, I remembered that's what Bjorn and I were going to figure out; How to get back.

The mentioned friend whose name started with a "B" was sitting at the small table near the room's deck. He was facing the city view, scrolling through the omni-tool on his left arm. The empty plate on the table told me that he had already been up for a while and had some food. I walked inside, wearing the jeans and shirt I picked up from the store yesterday. Bjorn briefly looked up from the distracting device.

"Hey," he said in his typical monotone voice.

I knew he meant well though. He seemed to be looking better than yesterday. I could only hope that was the same for me.

"Morning," I said as I stopped at the fridge and opened the door.

Only then did I remember that there was nothing in it. I sighed as I shut the door. Different shelter, different world, different fucking universe and here I was pacing my way to the fridge like nothing had changed. Looking to my right however, was a duplicate of Bjorn's plate, covered with eggs, bacon and breakfast potatoes. I glanced back at Bjorn who was quickly distracted again. It took him a few seconds until he noticed my silence. Looking up like last time, he nodded.

"I… ordered two of them."

I took the plate filled with food along with the fork next to it, walking back to the table before taking a seat on the other side.

"Thanks," I replied.

I stared out the window as I ate one slice of bacon. The view of the city still blew my mind, to think that this was the same place where I would go on about the city's overall hideous architecture. Now my hometown was higher and filled with more life than Manhattan. God knows what New York and L.A. looked like in this time. Then again, to think that Seattle and Vancouver combined should give enough of a clue as to how much Earth has expanded and grown over the past one-hundred and seventy years. I stopped thinking right there. Any more of it and my head would explode. Instead I tried to see what was keeping Bjorn so distracted from the view in front of us.

"So, what are you doing? Searching the new youtube? Find out of google went to war with the world? See if Half Life 2: Episode 3 ever got finished?"

He snickered at that last comment before shaking his head. "No, just looking for… stuff."

I slumped back in my chair. "Are we really going to go through this again? If it's not 'stuff', it's 'things'. If it's not 'things', it's 'stuff'. It won't kill you to talk about something that involves you."

He made no comment or expression. Instead just sat there with a lingering silence, until he raised his left arm and made the display bigger. What showed seemed to be a search browser. Not google, I guessed they failed to execute their plans of world domination. That wasn't the important thing though. What was, were the contents in the search bar. It was the name of Bjorn's mother. And the history tab showed he searched for the names of his three brothers too. The result number was zero. I didn't need expressions to see what he was doing, and why.

"I'm sorry, Bjorn."

He put on a light smile and shook his head. "It's fine. I just wanted to check."

I understood completely, and it gave more motivation for finding the building we woke up in. There were many other questions raised, but we would have to tackle them one at a time. My plate was still half full, but I wasn't hungry anymore. I was much more focused on what we would do next.

* * *

"Next" lead us right back to where we started. Science World was easy to find so it only took a few blocks for us to find the door we were looking for. The building's address was 1402, Station Street. Didn't mean much though. Even with all the old street names, I could only take their word for it. They could've moved Hastings Street and I wouldn't be able to tell. All the empty land or area's that were "not fit" for building construction had been replaced to the point where the only expansion left was up.

I paid no attention to the café I had been to, or the clothing store on the way here. Bjorn and I were here to find out just what the fuck we had gotten ourselves into and we were ready… ready to face the door that was still locked like when I got out.

"Did it do this when you got out?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah. I tried to go back inside but… it just locked up."

I walked to the sides and ran my hand over the door, trying to get a feel for anything that related to a panel. "And you didn't see any other way of getting in?"

"I was sort of more focused on where to find a shirt."

I chuckled. I was on the same page after I found out where I was. There still wasn't anything I could find on the door though. Finally I sighed and backed away, staring at it again. I'm sure I looked like a retarded burglar to everybody else on the street.

"So, any ideas?" I asked, still looking at the door.

Bjorn was about to say something when there was a sudden repeat of taps, like a can being knocked onto the ground. Thing is though, it didn't come from inside but was still ahead of us, like there was something behind the building. Bjorn seemed just as confused as myself. Yet, when I looked down the street to my left, there was a small gap between buildings. Old habits die hard and so did alleyways apparently. Granted they were more like tunnels these days due to the all the mega-towers that cluttered this place. With Bjorn being literally one step ahead of me, we both made our way down towards the narrow pathway that seemed to lead toward a space of old fashioned garbage bins.

Shrugging at me after seeing the strange sight, Bjorn went ahead of me as we had to move down the lane in a single file. I was distracted briefly by some writing on the wall. Someone used an old piece of chalk to write on the space-age stone above the space-age concrete "PAY 10 CREDS HERE IF YOU WANNA GET FUCKED". I snorted and shook my head at the mind blowing maturity some people in this city possessed. That was when I heard another tap on the floor, followed by a somehow bad sounding click.

"Who are you? What are you doing here!" said a new voice I didn't recognize.

It belonged to a woman but I couldn't see her as the narrow path blocked my view of what was going on. Bjorn had his hands up and a scared look on his face. It was easy to tell why that click sounded bad, it was part of a gun. I really hated having to do this again but I reached into my coats inner pocket and pulled out the M3-Preadator I still had from the store clerk. I took a deep breath and quickly rushed into the space. Turning the corner I saw the person the voice belonged too. The instant I knew she wasn't a woman per-say. That was given away by the blue skin.

"Drop the gun, kid!" said the asari, still keeping her weapon aimed at my friend's head.

"You first!" I said, trying to not make my voice shake like my hands were. I was having a hard time just keeping the thing leveled in the vague direction of her.

"Why would I do that?"

_Actually that's a good point. _"I don't want to hurt you but if you pull that trigger I will."

She had a light smile on her face. "With the safety on?"

_Wait? It's not actually… are you for fucking real?_

It was. I only noticed the little switch on my gun that second with big fat red lettering on the side labeled "SAFETY" with the switch resting the bottom place of "Off". Kind of like how my brain was off when I took out this fucking thing. Desperate, I flicked the switch to on and tried to re-aim my now working pistol. That was when I slipped out of my hands just in time for me to see that the asari's right hand had flashed a vibrant purple. Why? The pistol had gone out for a reason, and now it was heading right toward my face.

"Oh shi-"

What seemed to be the force of a rocket-propelled brick had hit my nose and made the bone crunch itself into little tiny pieces. This also had the effect of throwing me to the fucking ground making for a very painful landing.

"Ah, fuck!"

"Now, as I asked before, what are you doing here?" said the asari, even more confident than before with her perfectly leveled pistol aimed at my friend's skull.

I shut my eyes as I lightly brushed my nose and instantly regretted it. The pain wasn't as bad as the hit, but it was still really bad.

"We were wondering around, why the fuck does that matter?" I replied, my voice being more nasally than normal due to my hand covering the bloody nose.

"Because I was hired to come here and I wasn't told about any teenagers showing up."

"Last I checked, eighteen year olds are 'young adults'."

I waited for the response but it never came. The asari just stood there, staring at Bjorn and I. It was kind of creepy. My friend seemed to notice it too, as told by how uneasy he looked for once. The asari took started to walk toward us. She still had her pistol aimed at Bjorn and her next few steps came closer to him while I was still on the ground. When she was standing right in front of my friend, that's when she moved the pistol away and her eyes went black.

"Wait, no!" I panicked, getting up from the floor only to see a second later, the asari's eyes return to normal, and her breaths became gasps. She took a few steps back but not with the sharpness of a razor, they were uneven, matching her bewildered expression. She had seen where we were from. When we were from.

**Playlist Song 4: Renholder - Now I Know**


	5. Chapter 5: Keep Hope Alive

Homeworld

Chapter 5: Keep Hope Alive

As a fictional serial killer once said, life is routine, ritual, control. Now, I don't know what Bjorn's rituals were and frankly I don't want to, but whatever they were, this asari had just seen. It was the equivalent of dreaming as someone else, in a different place or world, knowing their exact feelings on everything they did. At least the comfort you have there is that it's a dream. This wasn't, unfortunately.

The asari whose name I still didn't know had snapped out of her trance and stood like she did before. Precise and focused with all of her thoughts and emotions tucked away in that brain of hers. I had to give her credit, she was good. Had I met her just now I wouldn't have noticed anything off about her.

"You're really them," she said, in a flat tone, like it was trying to hide something.

I still sat there, not knowing how to respond to that. I quickly glanced at Bjorn who was still breathing more heavily than normal. How it must've felt I didn't know, but if it was enough to make Bjorn's blood pressure rise, it was something at least.

"And what do you mean by that?" I asked.

"You're the people they sent me to look for."

This was getting worse by the question. Someone hired an asari… somebody to look for us? "They?"

"You don't know?"

"The fact I'm asking the question should've answered that already."

She didn't seem to like that. Her brief silence said it all. "The Circle."

"There's a group run by a circle?" said Bjorn, catch both of us off guard.

"It's run by a man named Sloan actually," replied the asari in a bitter tone. "He helped out two humans that said they woke up here and he hired me to see if there were anymore here."

"Wait," I said, purely out of reaction. "Who were the two humans?"

"I don't know. Sloan was going on about them being what they were looking for all these years and that only members of the group could see them."

"Where?"

"Come with me, and I'll show you. Sloan owes me a hell of a paycheck now anyway," she said the same way I imagine an oil executive would talk about dolphins. She just didn't give a shit.

I finally stood up on my own two feet. Only finding out then just how sore my legs were from laying on the hard floor for as long as I did. "Maybe some of that check could go toward fixing my nose," I muttered.

"Quit being a baby, it's only a nose, kid. I could've done a lot worse."

I believed her. Her voice gave away that those words were spoken from experience, not from reading the 101 on threats. Bjorn seemed to be back to his old self, unreadable. The only reason the asari could guess what he was thinking was that she was just inside his head. I would have to ask him what that was like later. The asari had holstered her pistol, but I didn't doubt how much of a quick draw she was if we decided to do anything stupid. Speaking of which…

"What's your name?"

She looked at me for a second, like she was deciding, until her expression said run with it. "Ressia."

"Lucas," I nodded before turning around to my friend. "And that's B-"

"Bjorn… I know," she said, pointing at her head.

She walked past my friend and I and down the alleyway we had taken to get here. I ignored the crude writing on the wall as my mind wasn't focused a wanting a cheap fuck. I was thinking about my friends, Paul and Phil. If Bjorn and I ended up here, and they woke up in the same place, there was a chance that we could rendezvous, and actually come up with a plan to get back… how we would, I had no idea. Nobody on the street seemed to give us a second thought as we left the alley. Nearby was a midsized car belonging to Ressia as shown when the doors opened at the touch of her omni-tool. I hadn't been in one of these things for the past 30+ hours I've been here. With the way things were going, that trend didn't seem to coming to rest anytime soon.

* * *

I keenly remembered Vancouver being the crowned for the worst traffic in the world. And from what I had seen in my first on the road experience here, it still was. We had been on the road for nearly an hour and we were only on the cusp of reaching North Van. A journey that previous would've taken twenty minutes, maybe. The roads had gotten extra lanes, neon signs were laid out everywhere, new symbols that I had no idea what they meant were painted in the middle of all the lanes, and none of it worked. Rush hour here was the same as it always was.

"Can't you just use sky cars or something?" I asked Ressia from my shotgun seat.

Bjorn lost the game of who quoted red vs blue first and had to sit at the back. Thankfully he resisted the urge to quote donut with "Shotgun's lap" so I didn't need to punch him. Not that I would. I once shoved him into a wall -don't ask- to which he just looked at me weird and shrugged it off. He was like a rock in that he simply didn't give a fuck, well that and the fact he spoke less than one.

Ressia shook her head at my inquiry. "My job pays well, it doesn't pay that well. Earth isn't like the Citadel, they don't just have transport stations on every block."

"Well, they should," I sighed. "What is your job anyway? You said this Sloan guy hired you, are you a PI or do those not exist here?"

"They exist, and I'm one of them."

"On Earth? No offense but it seems a little unique."

There was a pause, one that wasn't positive. She inched the vehicle forward before coming to a stop again. "I... used to work at C-Sec. I met a guy and… well, now I'm here."

I didn't have a response prepared, making me echo her silence from before. Careful as to what words I chose next. "And, where is he?"

"He was in Africa, last I heard. Probably out in China, saving the world or something."

I didn't need to ask to know that things probably weren't all sunshine and bunnies for her. Yet I did for the sake of possibly being wrong. "So you work on your own."

"Almost three years. Though, I've never had a case as weird as this one."

The traffic on the highway finally seemed to open up. Some auto-wreck that everyone had to stop and see for. I don't know why. Car accidents in Vancouver were about as frequent as Farmville requests. Ressia put her foot down and the vehicle sped up to a _blistering_ thirty miles an hour. Hopefully that would pick up more as we got closer to wherever we were going. Ressia had a look in her eye when she mentioned the case involving us. It spoke of fear.

"It's really true then?" she asked, even if it wasn't much of a question.

I could see Bjorn nodding his head in the rear view mirror, I did the same.

"Yeah, it's true. Where not from here."

"And this is all fiction to you in your world?"

How she was talking about this and keeping her eyes on the road, I had no idea. "You saw that part huh?"

"Yes… I did. It's hard for me to imagine but I saw it.

I couldn't come up with a way to continue this conversation. None of us really knew anything about what we were getting into here. This PI thought she was just going to get a paycheck for looking at a door. Part of me felt guilty for all this. Had we maybe just waited a few days, we never would've ran into her. Then again, Bjorn and I might not have had any chance at finding out what was going on. Whoever this Sloan guy was, he was determined to look for us, and I wanted to know why.

After more time passed, Ressia took an exit off the highway. The said exit was a name I remembered, Capilano. Now closer to West Van. Not quite the area that was known for housing the rich but it was close, and I was sure as Ressia drove down the exit, this area had plenty of them. Before, the exit would lead you to a street with mostly trees. Now, there was one, planted in the center between two tower blocks. Granted, they were not the size of the ones in Vancouver but still a huge conversion considering there didn't used to be any here before.

However, the trees did start to appear as we continued down the road. My surprise only got worse when Ressia finally stopped the car outside an old wooden shelter. Covered from top to bottom in green moss, it was easy to tell that it had been abandoned many moons ago. When all three of us got out of the car and we walked closer, I could make out an old wooden sign that read the words "Capilano Suspension Bridge". Yet another tourist attraction that I'm not sure if I even went to. I thought I did but I couldn't be one-hundred percent.

"They abandoned this one," said Ressia. Knowing what Bjorn and I were thinking. "There was a new one made five years ago. They were going to tear this one down but somebody had made an offer for the area that they couldn't refuse."

"Someone? This person wouldn't happen to be your employer would he?"

"Of course he would, why else would we be here?"

"Stuff?" quibbled Bjorn.

He smiled when he saw my "Really?" expression.

There was a slight breeze as we passed through the open entrance. Looking to my right, I could see the small toll-booth where I would've paid my entrance fee in the past. As we continued into the forest, I noticed how there was no longer any story halls or pictures of what this area used to be like a hundred years before I was born. All that was left was the path we were walking on. It wasn't long before I could see the suspension bridge itself. There was another pathway that lead to the cliff walks but none of us were focused on that today.

Turning left, Ressia stood behind Bjorn and I. Walking down the steps, I felt the bridge slightly shake as all of us started to walk across. The wind from the ravine whooshed across, making me wince slightly as it reminded me of my broken nose. The medi-gel Ressia had given me was space magic, but only to a point. Stop it from bleeding and possibly getting worse? Yes. Stop it from hurting? Fuck no. It was just space magic, not the all mighty power of Christ.

That was when I got shot. I heard the sound just after my ribs felt like they were hit with a wrecking ball. I cried out in pain before collapsing to the ground, knee first. It all happened so quickly. As the pain got worse, Ressia stood to action and covered all of us in a biotic bubble. Her face looked like she was about to start a storm with her powerhouse of dark energy. At that same time, a spot light came up, blinding me. I decided to look at the ground as my arms were still wrapped around my waist, clenching my teeth to stop from screaming but failing.

"Fucking son of a bitch!" I yelled out. Trying to distract myself with loud words.

"What is this!" called out Ressia, not letting her biotics fade.

"Everyone stand down! Hold your fire!" a powerful male voice commanded.

Taking a brief look ahead, I could see two buildings up ahead. They were both brown but it was easy to tell that one was new and the other wasn't. That was when a single figure came out of the entrance ahead of us, guarded by two people at his side. He was not what I expected from someone living in a place like this, then again, it was still one-hundred and seventy years in the future, so his futuristic clothing made sense. He stood at about my height with black hair, both on his head and face. His look gave this sense that he had seen a lot and done a lot, and that this little operation was just another thing on the list. Didn't take a genius to know that this was…

"Sloan!" barked Ressia. "I find two more of these people you're looking for and you shoot one of them?"

"A misunderstanding, I assure you."

_Yeah, easy for you to say, douche-fag. _

The person known as Sloan didn't seem as commanding as it first did when his eyes sit on Bjorn and I. It was kind of creepy to be honest. Then again, a group believing in people coming from other universes and not being wrong was even more ominous. He raised his hand and pointed at me.

"Get this one immediate medical attention. And I want a word with the person that fired without my permission. Clearly he doesn't know when he's in the presence of someone very special."

The two guards at his side rushed over to us. Tensions were high as Ressia still had her biotics up, but she eventually died them down. I was surprised by the sense of reluctance she had. I would've thought she'd just get a check and fuck off. That seemed like her intention. I gritted my teeth when I was picked up by the two guards without any warning, only feeling the pain shoot up through my whole body again. Looking at my clothes though, I could see that there was no blood at all. Must've been a non-lethal round. The term non-lethal was bullshit though, not-as-lethal was a better phrasing.

The suspension bridge continued to rock slightly many boots stomped their way to the other side. I couldn't pay much attention to the shelter, nor did I really care. Time had become a blur as I was put on a medical bed inside, I didn't know if I had been in there for hours or minutes. Thankfully, the shot was becoming less painful thanks to the space magic – I don't care if it's called medi-gel. I had stared at the wall while many people came and left the area. My head kept slightly falling to the side until a loud breath caught me off guard.

I opened my eyes to find the bed I was lying in just now, but nobody was here, and lights had been turned off. I sighed and bumped the back of my head against the pillow. It didn't happen often, but sometimes I would go to sleep without even realizing it. I usually hated this because in my sleep, it was a mix of things that actually happened and things that didn't. Usually resulting in me realizing how much of it doesn't make sense and then I feel like an idiot.

That was when there was a knock on the wall. I looked ahead to see Sloan come through the door with Bjorn. My friend seemed unharmed but I still didn't have a great feeling about this leader of whatever the group was called.

"Sleep well?" asked Sloan, in a pleasant tone.

"Sure. Getting shot knocks the wind out of you I guess," I tried to say without any sarcasm, as tempting as it was.

"Well, I'm sure seeing some old friends will help."

Before I could ask what he meant, two people walked through the entrance. Both familiar. And for good reason. They were my friends.

"Like how we did that?" asked Phil.

"As if we planned it or something?" added Paul.

**Playlist Song #5: The Crystal Method – Keep Hope Alive**

* * *

**Author's Note: Been awhile since I wrote one of these. I just wanted to apologise for this chapter taking longer to get out than the others. Especially since four ended on a cliffhanger. I had really bad writers block last week but thankfully, I was able to get a chapter done in two days recently. Hopefully that pace stays rather than goes. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and feel free to let me know. Peace.**

**P.S. Thank you to Bronzedamazon for the asari's name. Naming people and things in stories is always my least favourite part xD**


	6. Chapter 6: Sloan

Homeworld

Chapter 6: Sloan

It finally happened. I had been in this world long enough to call medi-gel, medi-gel, not space magic. As we continued down the hall, away from the bed I had caught an hour of sleep in, I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. It wasn't nonsensical. These past two days had easily been the longest of my life… right next to the time my power went out for three days. I was one of those people that probably wouldn't survive if the internet went down for more than a week. Still, at least on that occasion I didn't get shot by a slightly-less-lethal-round. But then again, those days didn't moments of walking down a corridor that looked like something out of Tron.

"I'm pretty sure this wasn't in the original suspension bridge tour guide," I said as we continued.

It was myself, Sloan, Bjorn, Paul and Phil. The last of two were doing most of the talking. I couldn't figure out why though. This Sloan guy seemed to think that we were special, due to us coming from what he described as "another world"-which I guess was accurate enough- and both of my friends weren't weirded out by this. Times like these, I tried to use my metaphorical mask as best as I could. Oh sure, go on, treat me like a fucking god, and while you're at get me a soda.

Sloan just smiled at my comment. "Not from where you're from, no. Then again, in your time, this place wouldn't have been almost demolished."

I just shook my head. Not at Sloan, but at what he brought up. "It's hard for me to imagine something like this being demolished. I mean, it was built in the eighteen-hundreds for Christ's sake."

"Well, there's a lot you need to catch up on," he said, still with the same joyful expression.

He seemed like a nice enough guy. I learned to never have high expectations with other people though. More often than not, people weren't what they seemed. I sure as hell knew from experience back home. The hallway seemed to open up a bit. I could see the end of it leading to what seemed to be a big lobby of some sort. One thing I wasn't used to yet was just how many people were in this place. Ressia mentioned that she was hired to try and find Bjorn and me but I wasn't expecting a cult.

Close to the entrance though, were two doors on both sides of it. The one on the left seemed to lead to a large kitchen and the other lead to smaller lounge area, couple couches and a holographic display on the wall. Along with a nice view of the suspension bridge itself. That was when Paul and Phil who were ahead opened the door to the right and stepped inside. Bjorn and I followed with Sloan standing outside of the room.

"I'm sure you all have a lot of catching up to do," he said. "You know, since two of you only just got here."

What did he mean by that? What? Did Paul and Phil arrive here first?

"I'll leave you to it," he finished before turning around to walk away.

I walked back toward the door. "Wait," I said, him stopping to listen. "What happened to Ressia?"

He shrugged, clearly thinking that my question had an obvious answer. "She did her job, I paid her and she left."

"Just like that?"

"As I said, she did her job. Talk to you later," he finished for real this time, walking away.

I sighed and turned around, hearing the door close behind me as I walked away from it. Speaking of doors, Paul had just closed one that belonged on the fridge, located in the corner of the room. On the counter next to it were four cans, the dripping water off them suggesting that they were ice cold. Paul took one and handed me another. I didn't recognize the brand name, or could even read it. Sort of like some of those Italian or Japanese soda's where they don't change the language, even for other countries. Although, I had a feeling the print on this can wasn't a language that originated from this planet. Regardless, I took it. I was thirsty, why not fix that by drinking something that'd make more dehydrated?

I smirked as I took the can from Paul. "That it? We're in a different universe, so bring out the soft drinks?"

Phil snorted next to him. "Of course the first thing you do is complain about things, Lucas."

"Well, yeah, it's my job. Plus, in all seriousness, it's not like I don't have the right to complain."

Paul sighed as everyone took a drink and turned around to sit on the couch. "Could we not talk about that right now?"

Everyone was taking a different seat. Paul was on the couch, Phil was on a big comfy chair in the corner and Bjorn was sitting on the small shelf up against the wall, below the holographic T.V. I was content with just leaning against the wall. Opening the can and taking a sip, it really was a soft drink. Tasted funny, kind of like a mix of cola and berries… ones that I never had before. It was good stuff.

"Well, the fact that you haven't given me a can of lemon juice so you can all laugh at my reaction suggests that you were kind of expecting this."

"That hasn't happened in years," he smirked.

"And I still haven't forgiven you for it, Bjorn," I replied, my eyes dead set on Bjorn as I said his name, to which he just had a look of "What did I do?" Bastard.

Phil meanwhile just sat there, confused as to what we were talking about.

I cleared my throat after another gulp of my drink. "So, you already know what happened to us, right?"

"You raped a guy for his omni-tool," Phil quipped, having trouble hiding his grin, not that he was trying.

My deadpan stare got a laugh out of him as I just shook my head. Truth be told, I missed this back and forth with friends. "So, what happened to you two then? Sloan mentioned that Bjorn and I only just got here."

"Yeah, so?" replied Paul.

"How long have you been here?"

"About a week," said Phil. "We woke up in some … weird white room, like something out of a movie. Paul and I ran into each other when we were trying to figure out how to leave."

"We found some dirty coats in an alley when we got out and basically just stuck to those kinds of areas for the first day. We of course didn't have any money-"

"Credits."

"Whatever, and so we were like that until that Sloan guy was driving around and saw us. We didn't trust him but, we were kind of desperate at that point and we still didn't know what was going on."

I found myself leaning off the wall and standing on my own two feet as I was listening more intently. There were two main questions. How did they arrive here a week earlier than us? And ….

"How did Sloan find out that you aren't from here?"

"Because Paul said it out loud like a genius," commented Phil, annoying Paul.

"You were about to do the same thing!"

"Yeah, but I didn't actually do it!"

This could've gone on for hours, and normally I'd let it for the sake of amusement but I really wasn't in the mood for it. "Guys!" I yelled. "What happened after that?"

Finishing his drink, Paul went back on topic. "They heard about where we woke up, how this place seemed like it was on another planet to us, etcetera. That was they found the people they were looking for and that we were picked up by a bunch of fucking psycho's."

"How so?"

"Have you actually talked to them? Or see the rest of their beliefs?" asked Phil.

"No, I was kind of too busy getting shot."

"They shot you because the 'agencies' is out to get them and they have to protect their 'special people' i.e. us."

"Not really anymore crazy than talking snakes," Paul smirked.

Phil just sighed and finished his drink too.

"What? I'm kidding," Paul said with his hands up, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

I shook my head and leaned back into the wall. "So if they're crazy, why don't you just leave?"

"Well, point one, they won't let us. And point two, we still need food and water. They give us that. We nod our heads to all the crazy shit and in exchange we aren't left on the street, it's not like we have much of a choice."

"No, I suppose not. We can now though."

All three of them looked at me like I went from weird, to pants-on-head retarded.

"How?" asked Bjorn.

I brought up the omni-tool on my right arm. "We've got credits on this and there's plenty on it. More than enough to keep us supplied until we find a way to get back."

"Get back? As in, to home?" said Paul.

"Yes."

Silence lingered around the whole room for what felt to be a long time, until Phil broke it. "What is there to suggest that we can go back?"

"I don't know, but we don't rule it out, not at least until we go to where we woke up and see what we can find. There's something in that place that has to do with us, and just us."

"And how are we going to get out of this place?" asked Paul, gesturing to the building we were in. "There's people everywhere, that always watch. The only way that could even work is if we got outside help."

There was a debate between everyone but I had an idea. Sure, they were easy. The trick was finding one that could actually work, and I had one… at least, I thought I did.

* * *

"Hello?"

I smiled as I heard the familiar voice. At least this time it wasn't from the other side of an alley… while she was carrying a gun… and broke my nose with it. "Ressia, its Lucas. I just wanted t-"

She hung up. Honestly, I should've known that'd happen. I hit Ressia's contact code on my omni-tool and stood still as it rang. I didn't have much hope that she would pick up. Thankfully, hope wasn't necessary.

"What do you want?" she asked. I could practically hear her angry expression.

"We need you to help us escape this place."

I didn't get a response. I thought she had hung up but when I looked at the display, it said otherwise.

"Hello?" I said, making sure.

"Yes, I'm just trying to think of reason I haven't disconnected this call again."

"Look, Ressia, please. We need to go back to where you met Bjorn and I. You've been in and out of this hideout, you must know how to get us out."

"Lucas, you're lucky I even took you there. I could've easily just give you and your friends to the police, and let you spend the rest of your lives in an asylum. I gave you to someone that clearly thinks you're all special and they're going to treat you that way until the day you die."

"You mean you took us here because you were getting a paycheck. You said that's why you were doing it."

"And? What's wrong with that?"

I sighed. It was her job and what she does. It wasn't anything personal, I knew that. But we still needed her help. Scrolling through my omni-tool's settings and options, I remembered the credits it had.

"What did Sloan pay you?"

The pause told me the question caught her off guard. "A thousand for when I took in you and Bjorn."

"Get us out and you'll get four times that."

It wasn't enough for her to say yes on immediate reaction but it was enough to make her think, and not for long.

"You'll get a call from me tomorrow morning. You will pay me, Lucas."

"That I will."

I knew we could pay it no matter what happened. How much time that gave us after that until we ran out wasn't much though. There had to be something in that white room, or else we'd be right where we started off. Well, we could just rob another asshole. But I didn't want to go through anything like that again, I just wanted to go home. The call had come to it's end and I turned around to look at my three friends, all of whom were waiting for the news.

"She'll call us in the morning."

"She's getting us out?" asked Bjorn.

I nodded. "Yeah, that's what it looks like. I wasn't sure if that was going to work."

"Well, we still don't know if it will," said Phil. "This asari has to be good."

"I trust her."

Paul looked up. "Don't take this the wrong way, but that doesn't mean I do."

"And I don't expect you to," I smiled. "But we don't have a choice."

Everyone else agreed. That was when the door opened next to us. Revealing Sloan once again, I guess he was going to check in at some point. I lost track of time in the midst of searching for Ressia's contact information.

"I don't mean to disturb you guys but, it's almost dinner, two of you know what that means." He smirked, looking at Paul and Phil.

"And what about the two of us that don't know?" I asked, not exactly in my best tone.

"It means we feast, lots of people and we can't let the four people of the hour go starving, come on."

Sloan was already gone before Bjorn and I could even react. Paul and Phil had gone through this before and therefore knew what to expect, the two of them stood and started walking toward the hall.

"So what should we expect?" I asked as we followed.

"Loud music and food, thankfully they let us choose what to play," replied Paul.

"And that also means I can too."

"Oh great."

"Nrrrrr, I wanna listen to my alternative rock!" mocked Phil.

"Fuck you, Phil." That got a laugh out of the three of them. "At least I'm able to listen to a song for more than five seconds without switching it."

"What? That was Paul, remember?"

"No!" objected the person in question. "That was you! The entire fucking trip!"

"It was your phone!"

"That you were using!"

I shook my and sighed, while turning my head. "Bjorn, thoughts?"

He just looked at me and remained silent.

"Alright, thanks." I laughed, as did Paul and Phil.

We all entered the main hall, surrounded by bright lights, music and people. I was just going to ignore all of them and take it easy. In my mind, I was kicking back while talking smack with my buddies, and that's all. Just like how it was.

* * *

**One Week Earlier**

"Eight eight eight, eight eight eight, eight eight eight, eight eight eight, eight eight eigh-"

"Start the game already! Start the game already! Start the game already! Start the game already! Start the game alrea-"

"Shut up!"

The annoying repeated phrases from Phil and Paul stopped, replaced with everyone laughing, including me. I normally didn't have a reason to yell in the house.

"Calm down, Lucas. Drink your chocolate milk," retorted Paul, also getting a laugh from all of us.

"Yeah, because that's totally going to calm me down."

"I wish I was there when you guys did that," said Phil.

The black screen of the game faded out, revealing the stage. All of us with our silenced pistols in game as we were supposed to sneak around and knock out guards, not that we ever did that.

"Oh hey, this is that level that was in the trailer when you guys wanted me to get this game and I was like 'fuck video games, dude I'm like the… dude… porn'."

"Yeah, those are some strong moral values you have there, Phil."

"Bjorn, I'm just going to follow you, because it's really amusing," said Phil, ignoring Paul.

Bjorn chuckled from his laptop in the middle of the room meanwhile Paul, Phil and I were using our own PC's. I looked at Phil's screen to see what he was laughing at.

"Fucking idiot, you're just punching the ground."

"Do you guys see this blood splattering everywhere?" asked Bjorn.

"Yeah, you do know that guys are trying to kill us, right? Actually, no, it's cool, let's just rave while cops come in and destroy the place."

We had set up the drill as it weakened the vault door, and in typical Payday game fashion, needed to be restarted about three times. It was getting late and this was probably our last game before calling it a night. Everyone had already called out their own couch to sleep on so that they could be picked up tomorrow. That was when Paul's phone rang, to which he answered… while the police were sending in SWAT teams in game.

"Hello? Yeah, hold on, I'm robbing a bank, just give me a second. Hey guys, protect my guy while I take this," he said, getting out of his chair and leaving the room.

"Sure, just make it quick," replied Phil.

"Bjorn! I kind of need that turret up now!" I yelled, fighting off about a dozen men in blue.

"Uh, I'm kind of… dead."

I sighed as the screen warned me that Bjorn was down. "Of course you don't fucking tell me that you need help," I laughed.

"Well, I was about to, but then I died."

"As par for the course."

"Guys! I don't have any ammo or guns!" Phil called out.

Paul came running back into the room just as the vault door opened with loads of cash sitting on the table inside. Just as Phil did his over the top scream as he was gunned down outside. In game I ran back inside the bank, packing the money in bags before the cops got inside.

"Okay, where's the van?" Paul said, looking around the map for the icon.

I was already out of the vault, just in time to find the van right in the middle. Directly behind the line of cops waiting for us that didn't hesitate for a second. Both our characters went down, hopelessly looking around with a gun in hand, waiting for support that would never arrive.

"God damn it! We were so close that time!" Paul smiled as the failure music played on screen.

"Can we just call it? We already made lots earlier and this mission is just a bitch," I added.

"Yeah, that's fine. We're not playing that level again on Overkill," concluded Phil."

"Well," said Bjorn. "We could've done it if we didn't…"

"If we didn't die?" I smirked.

"Yeah… if we didn't die."

"All right. We're finished then. Besides, I got a lot of shit to buy on this tomorrow. Not like we won't be able to anyway."

**Playlist Song #6: Power Glove - Sloan**


	7. Chapter 7: Sloan's Assault

Homeworld

Chapter 7: Sloan's Assault

The morning, miserable. The weather, shitty. My friends, drunk. Well, two of them at least. I was the person that decided one cider was enough for the night. Good thing the medical station had many remedies for hangovers. Paul and Phil would've still been telling me to fuck off in bed otherwise. I didn't bother with any of the bunks they had in this place and instead settled for the comfy couch in the same room where we discussed how we would escape with Ressia. The mattresses looked like they'd seen their fair share of romantic conquests.

The wait was killing me. The friendly PI didn't say specifically when she would call, only that she would sometime today. I'd sit there for hours on end, tapping my foot against the floor while I sat with my heart racing, thinking that right then was the moment. Pretty stupid considering there was no reason to, then again, I was pretty stupid.

The omni-tool rang. Time stamp: 9:26PM.

"Next time, please give me something more than 'tomorrow'."

"What?" asked Ressia.

"Never mind, where are you?"

"I'm at the window."

"What window?"

There was a knock in front of me. I looked up to understand what she meant, the window ahead gave a perfect view of the familiar looking asari in what I could only guess was some kind of infiltration suit. At least, it's not the same thing she was wearing yesterday.

"You know, plans generally involve more than one person."

"Do you want to get out or not?"

I got off the couch and on my feet. "Well, I'm going to have to get my friends and somehow not have them be seen."

"It's not like we're going through this window smart guy, there's an emergency exit next to the medical station, I'll meet you guys on the other side in three minutes, if you aren't there when I'm there, and I'm leaving. If your friends don't make it, that's your fault not mine."

"All right, I get it. Let me find them."

I let the call stay as I left the room and looked down both sides of the corridor. I couldn't meet them directly because they'd almost certainly be followed by someone and I wasn't smart enough to come up with a cover story. I scrolled through my contacts list. The Travelers had given Paul, Phil and myself an omni-tool each, during the feast. Sloan said that it would help us stay in contact and it was hard to argue with him on that. I definitely appreciated it now. The device began to ring as I called the first name on the list, Bjorn.

I was walking down the hall toward the bay that I woke up in yesterday. The device clicked, and the ring stopped.

"Hello, this is Bjorn."

"You don't need to do that anymore, that thing acts as your phone, not someone else's."

"Yeah, but... reasons."

"Look, Ressia is here, apparently her plan is to have us meet her at the emergency door near medical. Where are you?"

"I'm... kind of already at the door with her."

"What? How?"

"I saw her near one of the windows and she told me."

I sighed and rolled my eyes as I continued walking. "Let's just hope the guards don't find her that easily. Stay with her, I'm almost there. Where's Paul and Phil?"

"I don't know."

"Shit."

I saw on the omni-tools clock that I already wasted too much time talking to him. I knew I was going to make it, I could see the door I needed to get to. Nobody else was in the hallway at the moment and it was all clear. The door whooshed open as I said into the omni-tools voice reader that Ressia was here and we had to leave right now or she was gone. I CC'd the message to Phil and Paul and hit send. Looking up, the last door opened, revealing Bjorn with Ressia in silence outside.

There was a wall blocking everyone's view from us so that they wouldn't see us unless they came from the emergency hall or we moved out.

"Always a pleasure, Ressia," I joked.

"Just remember, I'm doing this for the money, not you."

Her face was cold, as were her eyes. I didn't doubt her statement.

"Yeah, well, thanks anyway."

"Don't thank me yet, your friends haven't shown up yet."

"They will. They have to."

At least, that's what I told myself. They wanted this more than any of us. I still couldn't figure out how they showed up in this place a week before Bjorn and I. It must've meant I didn't just wake up the next morning in a different world. I was out of it for seven days, all of which I had no recollection of. Those thoughts weren't my focus though, I was staring down the hall, waiting for Paul and Phil to show their faces. I listened carefully for any kind of footstep or mutter and I was granted nothing.

"Come on," I whispered.

I felt like my heart was beating in my stomach. Ressia looked down on her omni-tool, showing a clock ticking down from thirty seconds. I tried to not show my fear and kept staring at the door, keeping my breaths as even as possible. By the time it reached to twenty I wasn't breathing at all. When it reached ten that was when I exhaled, and heard footsteps. The door opened to reveal my two friends running down toward us. It was because they were cutting close, I first thought, until I saw the man chasing after them.

Ressia walked past Bjorn and I, walked in front of my two friends, shoved Paul aside, brought up her left arm. The goon after Paul and Phil was covered from head to toe in electricity bolts before collapsing to the ground unconscious. The PI quickly turned back to all four of us, I saw for a flash of a second a look she hid very well, worry.

"We need to leave now. They're going to find that body sooner rather than later," she said as we gathered around. "Are you ready?"

Everyone nodded and I spoke. "Yeah, we're good to go."

"Okay. Follow me and don't take a step ahead. Not even when we pass the bridge."

"Five by five."

Ressia responded by leaving our cover and taking point. We stayed behind her as quickly as we could. We all knew we needed to be quiet, otherwise we were going to get another situation like Paul and Phil had, though probably with more gunshots.

"What was that back there?" I whispered to them.

"Some guy saw us and wouldn't leave us alone," said Paul. "When he grabbed me I shoved him to the ground."

"Yeah, and nearly alerted everyone in this fucking place," replied Phil.

"Can we please argue about this later?" I told them both, knowing where this was headed.

"Like you're one to talk," Paul countered.

Honestly, I couldn't really go against that.

Ressia meanwhile wasn't paying attention to anything we had to say. She was still taking point. We had gone left and were now on one of the wooden pathways, thankfully with no guards patrolling.

"Why don't we go right? It's all solid ground," I said.

"That was the plan," she replied. "But your little friend Sloan decided to start walking around that area."

"So now, all we can do is cross the bridge? How are we going to cross it without getting caught?"

"I don't think we can."

All of us kept moving as I looked at Ressia, seeing her look of doubt, like she had made a mistake. I wanted to be pissed that she was only doing this for money but I couldn't. From her side of things, we were just a bunch of dumb kids that didn't belong, yet her she was. No thanks to me, I was the one that decided to practically bribe her.

Ressia then ran to a nearby wall, making as little noise as possible before gesturing us to do the same. We followed and took cover next to her. Ressia peeked around the corner before coming back with a picture on her omni-tool, displaying what she saw. Two guards were blocking the direct path to the bridge.

"Of course," I sighed.

"How are we going to get past them?" asked Bjorn.

"I'm thinking," was all that Ressia said.

Thinking wasn't on our side, as proven by the bright light that blinded everyone. I had to block the source of illumination with my arm to see what was in front of me, which turned out to be Sloan and three guards standing beside him. The light was coming from above, possibly someone on the roof. Looking back, I think about how much I hated The Travelers search lights. When it happened though, all I could think was-

"Oh shit!" shouted Paul.

"Run!" ordered Ressia.

In the simplest of words, that is what we all did. The wall for cover didn't matter, we left it, turned around the corner and ran straight for the bridge. The two guards in our way were still there. Ressia glowed blue and raised her right arm in a violent motion. At the same time, the two guards were flung into the air, covered in the same blue as the asari PI. The two hovering guards still had weapons, assault rifles, and they decided to let them dance. As soon as they pulled the triggers, I shook after every bullet was fired. The sounds of birds fleeing in fear barely registered compared to the terror these weapons gave. Multiple shots hit the floor we were running toward.

Ressia, like always, was one step ahead. She motioned her arm down and in turn, the guards were slammed into the floor on their heads. It was hard to ignore the multiple crunch sounds their breaking bones made.

"Stop them! Now!" I heard Sloan shout behind us.

All of us jumped down the steps. I never felt more relieved to feel the thin and unstill floor of a suspension bridge.

"Keep moving! We're almost there!" bellowed Ressia.

We had another two thirds of the bridge to go. The bridge reacted to every step. We all moved down the single lane, no thought of slowing done. Just a bit longer and we'd be out of here. Then, about half way through, that was when the bridge started reacting to bullets. I had the same reaction as I did earlier to every shot fired, but even more violent as the shots were that much closer. Every dent the bridge received told me that one of them was going to hit its target.

Ressia then turned around, once again glowing blue, stopped moving, and yelled before creating what looked to be a shield. Protecting all of us. She looked at us as the biotic field flashed with each round it blocked.

"Don't stop running! Go!"

We did as she commanded, the other end was in sight. I had never felt the way I felt then, and I hated it. I kept running with no control. No way for me to stop the enemy from shooting me and taking me back there, or killing me. The sounds of shots fired seemed more and more distant, Ressia was holding them off, but she wasn't going anywhere. That was when I could hear her scream over gunfire. Turning around as I ran, her shield became a bubble surrounding her. The bubble quickly retracted back to Ressia, before exploding all around her. Before I could make a single cry of fear, I was thrown into the air, as were my friends. I felt like I was in a nightmare, those were the only times I felt the horror of having no solid ground. Only now, I was really falling. I looked down and could see the riverbed a hundred feet below, and regretted it.

That was when my arm hit the ground. I cried out before rolling multiple times and coming to a stop. We had gone past the bridge and landed on the path way beyond the bridge's entrance. We made it. Albeit in much shittier condition.

There was a laugh I could hear, but not the kind someone uses when they hear a joke. "Ow! Ow!" repeated Paul, over and over as he rolled on the ground.

Everyone had a different reaction. Paul was laughing his ass off. Phil was cursing enough to make a trucker reach for the chill pills, and Bjorn was… standing in front of me.

"Want a hand?" he asked, holding one out.

I grabbed it, followed be him helping me get up. I winced at as I felt the entire left side of my body crack. "What happened to you?"

"I landed on my feet."

"Fuck you, asshole."

The sounds made by our little group though was all that could be heard. The gunfire had stopped in tandem with the biotic explosion. That was when there were footsteps coming from the bridge. All of us turned to look at the entrance, seeing a familiar blue alien reveal herself. She looked the same as before, except her blue glow had faded away. It was hard to tell but it seemed like whatever she did really wore her out. That didn't make her any less determined.

"Re-enforcements are on the way, we need to leave, now."

**Playlist Song #7: Power Glove – Sloan's Assault**

* * *

**Authors Note: Special thanks to Lady Amiee Krios for looking this chapter over and helping me fix some of its issues, you always make them better because of it :)**


	8. Chapter 8: Car Crash

Homeworld

Chapter 8: Car Crash

I should've kept playing Soccer. If I did I probably wouldn't be out of breath after running the equivalent of fuck all. My entire left side was still killing me. I didn't know much about biotics but, couldn't Ressia at least make a blanket to soften the landing or something?

"It isn't that bad! Just keep moving!" said Ressia.

I made something of a mix between a growl and a sigh, trying my best to ignore the pain and do as she said. My friends were still hurt too. Bjorn did manage to land on his feet but I could tell by his slower speed that it took its toll on him. Legs aren't exactly designed to take landings like that, even in the future.

By now we were back on the main path that I'd recognized as the one we took when we arrived here. Seeing these familiar paths I saw in pictures back home was as strange as ever. Although, I didn't have the time to really take it in.

The path started to widened until we finally saw the main entrance, where you used to buy tickets for this place. Through the open door I could see the streets. Two vehicles were parked at the front. I assumed one of them belonged to the PI.

"Stop! Put your hands in the air!"

That is, before I recognized the flashing sirens. Four police officers stood behind their cruisers, Predator side arm's steady in hand and ready to fire. Someone must've called in the gunshots. No surprise there, but the cops seemed confused by our arrival. Like they were expecting someone else.

"Now!" ordered the Officer again.

I could see Ressia thinking. Trying to come up with a way to get us out but it was to no effect, she gestured for us to do as the officer said. We all raised our hands at the same time. I noticed that all of the cops' attention seemed to be on her.

"Now get down on the ground! Hands behind your head!"

Ressia went first but once again, we followed. I laid down slowly, hearing multiple footsteps and felt my hands get pulled back until they were tied down with handcuffs. They looked like they were made from the same tech as an omni-tool but with only one specific job. From there I was brought back to my feet and was soon being moved toward one of the police cruisers, they're open doors waiting for us. The officer next to me brought up his omni-tool.

"This is X-13, we've got five unknowns coming from crazy base, bringing them back to the precinct, over."

* * *

We were on the same road as when Ressia took Bjorn and I to Sloan, just now we were going the other way, and a hell of a lot faster. The vehicle we were in zoomed by all the traffic taking place. I didn't know what Paul, Phil and Bjorn were saying in the car ahead of us but it was probably more than here.

I knew Ressia could talk, so did she, but for the past fifteen minutes she hadn't uttered a word.

"I'm sorry."

Until then.

"About what?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"For taking you there. For putting you and your friends through all this because I wanted the money."

"You were just doing your job. And if you didn't, Sloan would've just hired someone else. This all started because of..."

I stopped when I caught a quick glance of the man in the passenger seat, he was listening. The last thing I needed was for the driver to change the route toward a mental institution. I tried not to smirk when I saw that the cop disappointed. Policeman were funny. I had respect for them, for having the courage to want to do some good despite there being other career paths that could make a better living... yet I didn't help them. Especially not now. "I came from a world where all of this was a video game" was going to sound pants-on-head-retarded to anyone, let alone an officer of the law.

Ressia knew what I was getting at and simply nodded. I was happy that she no longer seemed as cold. Behind the mask was a person, no matter what race she was.

Turning away from her, I looked out the window, only to be blinded by headlights. The vehicle using them rammed into my side of the car. Instinctively, I blocked my face using the sides of my arms, I could feel the shattering glass hitting them and falling to the floor. The g-force from the hit felt like it was enough to snap my neck. Tires screeched the ramming vehicle continued to push ours down the street. The police cruiser stayed level but only just.

The screeching slowing came to an end as the vehicle responsible for this came to a stop. Before I could even look out the window, I already heard the sound of doors opening. Looking out my smashed window, it was no wonder how we had been taken down. The car that hit us wasn't so much a car as it was a death machine. The thing was huge, easily putting most SUV's from my day to shame.

That was the least of our problems though, as well as for the officers in front of us. The Driver and passenger got out at the same time. I heard cry of pain in sync with gunshots, just before I saw the second cop go down, blood dripping from his chest. The driver dived behind his side of the cruiser and opened the back door next to Ressia.

"Come on!" he shouted.

Ressia wasted no time, neither did I. I quickly crawled my way out of the car before landing on the hard concrete. I clenched my teeth and growled as my hands took shards of glass with them. Ressia grabbed me and shoved my back against the car.

"Don't shoot! That's one of them!" I heard a voice shout from the other side.

I knew The Travelers were fucking crazy, and I should've guessed that they were the only ones that could do something like this, but I didn't.

"X-13 to dispatch," the cop said with his omni-tool activated. "I've got a man and vehicle down, we've been attacked in the downtown east side, I need back up right now!"

Ressia glowed blue, hell, she probably was when the car hit us. Using biotics for her seemed as easy as breathing, second nature. I stayed in my spot as she stood and lifted her hand up, just before slamming it down. I could hear the hostiles scream as they were lifted off the ground, followed by sounds of their bones being crushed, hitting the floor.

I peeked around the corner with my bleeding hands to see more vehicles a few blocks down putting the speed limit to shame. All the men that Ressia attacked were on the ground and their SUV looked like it was still running. I didn't say anything, I just got up and ran toward it.

I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Ressia following me. The cop behind her though raised his gun. I stopped in my tracks, only a few feet away from the door.

"You're not going anywhere!" yelled the officer. "I'm taking you in!"

"And look how that's turning out! You can clearly see more fuckers are after us!" I argued, pointing to the oncoming vehicles as my heart raced.

The cop kept his pistol aimed at me. I didn't think, and opened the SUV's door regardless. I held my breath as I got up and sat behind the wheel, and exhaled when the cop didn't fire. The time for relaxation wasn't there though, as made more apparent when Ressia slammed her door shut next to me.

"Drive!" she commanded.

There were things I didn't understand about this car, buttons and symbols I didn't have back in my home. Hell, I barely drove back home anyways. I got around to getting anything above a learners license. However, the basics were there. Wheel, two pedals, gearbox in the middle. That's all I needed.

I put the gear leaver in "R" and slammed my foot on the gas. The front bumper was torn off as I pulled the vehicle away from the cop car. The tires made their black tread marks as I stomped on the brakes, before putting the car in gear and put the right pedal to the floor. The brief excitement of doing something I always wanted to do was quickly replaced with fear. The rear-view mirror reflected the multiple beams of light coming from the other cars after us.

The intersection I was headed too had been cleared out, most likely after people saw the commotion of the scene these fuckers created. I remembered though, what about the other police cruiser? I had no idea where Bjorn, Paul and Phil had gone. With the hope that they were still around, I turned right and entered the next street. Looking over my shoulder, I could see three vehicles after us, all of which had slid around the corner, nearly losing control.

"You didn't get a glimpse of the other cop car, did you?" I asked, Ressia.

"No, I didn't," she said, her eyes scanning the road for some sign of them. "There's no way Sloan would order to kill them, he'd want all of you alive."

"Doesn't feel like it when we've got a squad of these bastards after us."

A quick glance on the rear view camera showed the mentioned squad of cars still after us. I slammed my fist on the wheel as I saw them catching up. There was nothing that could be done. I was using a big ass SUV, and the three cars behind us we're Sedans. The tension in my body was only made worse when I saw what was ahead. The second cop car was sitting place, its front being completely crushed by the wall it crashed into. Two cars identical to the vehicles after me had come to a screeching halt, stopping just short of the wreckage.

I saw them. Bjorn, Paul and Phil were using the cop car as cover while the officers fired at The Traveler's after them.

"Stop next to them!" ordered Ressia.

"What about the cops?"

"I'll handle them."

I didn't worry about the people behind us. Instead easing off the gas, turning the wheel and braking at just the right time, only a few steps away from my friends. Ressia opened the door and she glowed blue. The cops behind their vehicle were covered from head to toe in a new layer, the blue telling me Ressia was using her mass effect fields to put them in stasis, but not while they were in the open. She quickly gave The Traveler's some attention by creating a biotic sphere, gradually pulling its victims toward it. They were helpless as the singularity took away their control. I looked out the window to see the three sedans after us were right on our tail. Looking back at Ressia, I saw my three friends running behind her, both of the side doors being opened.

"Come on!" I shouted.

Ressia jumped in, as did my friends in the back. The instant I saw no feet on the ground, I stomped on the accelerator pedal. The back wheels spun before finding the traction that resulted in progress, progress that I needed.

"They're right on us!" Phil exclaimed.

I felt and heard the force of one of the sedans hitting the SUV's rear bumper. I fought to keep the vehicle in a straight line when I felt the same car hit us again. On the rear view camera, the car lost some speed and was getting ready for another hit.

"Hang on, everybody!" I yelled.

Right as the driver sped up, I hit the brakes. The force from the impact made me wince, the left side of my body aching again. The sound from the hit was much worse than anything before but to my delight, their car had been seriously damaged. Two more of the bastards were still there, however. They were on the brakes to, so I turned all the way right and welded my foot to the floor with the gas pedal. It wasn't long before The Traveler's caught on and did the same thing. I was finally get some distance from them, though, I knew that wouldn't last long.

While it did make my heart race even faster, I wasn't shocked to hear sirens in the distance. It wasn't them I was running from, it was Sloan and his cult of shitheads.

"Where's the nearest station?" I asked, glancing at Ressia before turning my focus back on the road.

She had to have known. I'm sure if you worked as a PI, you would have at least some knowledge of the local police departments.

"Department is on Main Street! One of the few things that hasn't changed in the past hundred years!"

"Of course."

"Here," said Paul.

On the front of the dash was a displayed map, with a convenient red dot indicating us, headed toward a white dot labeled "Main St". We weren't far, our police escort had been interrupted during its last stages.

"All right," I said before taking a deep breath. "We can do this."

"Just remember, you're the one driving!"

"How did that even happen?" asked Bjorn.

"If you want to switch right now, Bjorn. Be my fucking guest!" I replied.

The street started to narrow, and much to my disappointment, included more traffic than before. Most drivers on the streets from before were making a break for it, but now, we were entering uncharted territory. I may have been to Main St plenty of times, but never like this.

I eased off the gas a bit as all the lanes of traffic ahead were blocked off.

"Cut through the side walk!" commanded Ressia, pointing at the street with many pedestrians.

I turned the wheel toward it, what scared me was how I was just about to do this without a second thought. I put the pedal back on the floor and put my fist on the horn. Multiple civilians cowered in fear, just like I hoped. I felt the bump of the car going over the sidewalk and continued down, blasting the horn and shouting.

"Get the fuck out of the way!"

I looked behind to see that this didn't slow the people after us. They charged down the path that I was creating. I could only hope this would last long enough for us to get to the station. There was some hope that we wouldn't have to though. Ahead was a sea of blue and red lights, once I got a clear sight, it was a road block. A spotlight had been shined over my vehicle. All of us looked up to see a police sky car up above lighting us up. Once there was an open lane in the traffic, I put the vehicle back on tarmac and set off toward the cops.

The gas pedal didn't do anything though, whatever powered this beast went silent too, and all of the lights went out in the vehicle. I hit the pedal over and over again, hoping in vein that it would magically start working.

"What the fuck!" I shouted.

"Get this thing fucking started!" Phil yelled.

"You think I did this? It just stopped!"

There was a click of a loud speaker, it was from the cops.

"Stop the vehicle! Right now!"

I saw on the camera the two cars had us in their sights.

"Get them!" I screamed at the cops, desperately.

"Stop the vehicle!"

"Fu-"

The force of this hit felt different and it was something I felt before, that feeling you get when it goes on sides of the car that were not meant to hit the ground. The deafening impact from the hit was followed up by the sounds of metal scraping along concrete. I held on the wheel for dear life as I didn't have a seat belt to hold me. The SUV continued to slide on its side, the last hurrah of noise being our car crashing into the road block.

I always hated downtown.

**Playlist Song #8: Antonio Pinto – Car Crash**

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**Trying to come up with new ways of giving a shout-out isn't easy, so fuck it. Thank you Lady Amiee Krios for looking over the chapter and erasing my dumb sentences and typo's. Stay awesome! :)**


	9. Chapter 9: Invisible War

Homeworld

Chapter 9: Invisible War

I'm not the sort of person that thinks highly of himself. I'm sure many people I've talked to on the internet would argue against that but in reality, it's true. I do like to think I'm decent at story telling though. I always try to time jokes as best I can, or try to add suspense when I'm telling something a bit more serious, whatever makes it more fun for the audience. All that kind of goes out the door when you're talking to police officers, both of whom looked at me as if I started the Cuban Missile Crisis. Add to that, the fact I was lying on a hospital bed, not exactly me in my most confident state. My injuries from the crash thankfully didn't warrant the use of meds. The same couldn't be said for Phil though. According to Paul and Bjorn who were uninjured, Phil spent the last few hours tripping balls on that shit.

"And you're sure you have no idea why Sloan would be after you?" said Officer to my right, I think his name was Tony.

"Didn't I already answered this question?" I asked.

These guys only asked about four hundred times.

"We're just trying to see if your story checks out," said the Officer to my left, I had no clue what his name was.

"It's not a story, it's what really happened. Why wouldn't that check out?"

"Because judges don't have a habit of believing people who aren't seen anywhere in social records."

The feeling of my heart sinking came back and my breathing stopped. By the time I realized these two read my panic as easily as a Dr. Sues book, I knew there was nothing I could do to fix it.

"Do you have anything to say about that, Mr. Raycevich? Or whoever you may be."

"What does that mean?"

Tony crossed his arms. "There's only two types of people that aren't anywhere in social records. Newborns and Criminals. And while you are in a hospital, you don't look like crying little shit-machine."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"I'm not sure if you realize this, but it is not a good time for you to be a smart ass."

No, but it sure is a lot more fun. That and it distracted me from being terrified that these guys found out that I technically didn't exist. When I remained silent, Tony uncrossed his arms and sighed. His partner looked at me like a school principle sending someone to detention. Last I checked, I was lying on a bed after a car crash. Not being caught trying to skip math class.

The door leading out to the hall was slid open, revealing a certain blue skinned woman… well, asari. If a human woman had blue skin I think she'd need to see a doctor. Regardless of race, the cops seemed surprise to see her here. Tony walked away from me and toward her.

"Mrs-"

"Ressia is my name, Officer."

He bowed his head. "I apologise, but, we already got your statement and we're on official police business. There's no need for a Private Investigator. Especially one that's involved with these four non-existent people."

"Citizens, you mean."

"If by citizens, you mean criminals, then ye-"

Ressia kept her expression blank as she brought up her omni-tool. I couldn't read the whole thing from where I laid, but I knew one thing, it shut Tony right the hell up.

"I mean citizens, Officer."

She hit a button on the device, making the image transfer from her omni-tool to Tony's. She stood next to me as the second cop walked toward Tony to see what his partner was reading over. I glanced at Ressia and spotted the smallest of grins, much to my shock. Her expression became blank again just before the cops turned around. They knew something was not right about this, anybody could, if they were smart enough to prove it was a different matter.

"Now," said Ressia. "I believe that you've had enough time to ask Mr. Raycevich all your questions, so you are no longer needed here. I'm sure there are some real criminals you could spend your time stopping."

The two officers wanted to argue, but they couldn't. If Ressia spent her earlier years in C-Sec, then she knew their entire playbook. Tony changed his expression to a friendly one, the kind that you put on when you're hiding a built up anger inside.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Raycevich."

I just nodded and didn't give them the benefit of a spoken word. Once they were out the door, I sighed and let the back of my head rest on the comfy pillow. To say it was a relief didn't quite cut it.

"I know they gave you a hard time but we really should get moving."

The PI seemed like how I had been when we first met, like she was needing to do something.

"What about the hospital? Don't I have to go through some paperwork or whatever?" I asked.

"I've already got that covered. I can explain more at my office."

She gestured to a corner of the room behind her. At first all I saw was a wall, but at the top right corner, there was the slightest of specs I could see. Security cameras had come a long way I guess, and I'm sure they did more than just capture video footage.

"What about my friends?"

"They're all fine. Phil took the worst of it but his burnt arm has been completely healed. Bjorn and Paul only had a few scratches, they're okay. The cops were talking to them too when I got here."

I was about to ask if they had said anything, but I'm sure the cameras had already caught enough oddity's as it was. We needed to get somewhere private. Seeing that my clothes were on a hanger to my left, I hopped out of bed and grabbed them.

* * *

I didn't know what to expect when we arrived at the PI's lair but the result is what I should've expected. There were very few decorations in the office. Most of it looked like it served a purpose, something that would help Ressia. A desk for organizing things, a chair to sit on behind that desk, and enough datapads to embarrass a factory of the damn things. They dominated the whole space, and I was sure that all of them had important information. Ressia didn't seem like the kind of person to hoard useless junk.

She sat down at her workspace like business as usual, meanwhile my friends and I took the opportunity to look around. As Ressia tapped away on another omni-tool, I walked past the cluttered corner to see another open entrance. I stopped moving once I saw what it was, an apartment. Her office doubled as her home. Everything at the front door, all the objects serving some greater purpose didn't apply here. There were old fashioned framed pictures on the wall, a couch that looked like it had been passed on dozens of times and a table that had done more than that.

"I know," she said behind me.

I turned around to see Bjorn, Paul and Phil had followed. For the first time, the hard to read detective had a smile. Not a grin, not a fake expression to hide real feelings, just a smile.

"It's not like me to have these kind of things around," she continued, walking past us and toward the kitchen.

She gestured to us to come inside and we did. All of us leaned against the counter while she pulled the fridge door open.

"So… about the credi-"

"Forget it," said Ressia, interrupting me. "Whatever you could give me would barely cover the credits I spent getting all of you fake I.D's. If it wasn't for me those cops would've thrown you in a cell by now. Speaking of which."

She turned around with a drink in one hand, and four cards in the other. She tossed the latter on the counter. All of us reached for the ones that had our names written on them. Cards had gotten an overhaul in the future too. They weren't just square pieces of plastic with numbers and a corporations name on it. They were clear with projected text shown, as well as touch screens, allowing the user to scroll through multiple licenses.

"Woah," said Phil, flipping through the many pages on his card.

Bjorn and Paul seemed just as intrigued by this as myself.

"I'm allowed to fly a skycar?" asked Paul, more to confirm what he already knew than really wondering.

"Skycars, land vehicles, you name it. Those cards give you everything a normal citizen in council and/or Alliance space has. As well as past expenses so it'll look like you have been here for the past twenty years."

"Wouldn't that cost a lot of money?" asked Bjorn, speaking for all of us.

"Yes. My point exactly. I worked at C-Sec so I know what they look for, if they can't detect these, nobody can."

I stopped going through all the card's menus, tapping the object on the counter as I thought about what to say. "Ressia, you do know that we're trying to get back home, and if we do, these will be for nothing."

"They're the reason you can try to get back home in the first place, they've already been for something."

She was met with silence, and for good reason, no one could argue her.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

"We go back to where it started for all of you, for real this time."

**Playlist Song #9: Alexander Brandon – Deus Ex: Invisible War Theme**

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**Authors Note: I'm sorry for this taking so long to get out but there were many things getting in the way. The biggest time consumer being that I recently moved to a new house and didn't have internet for a week. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long for me to get around to writing. Thanks for reading and have an awesome weekend!**


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